POWER, CLASS
AND THE STATE
IN TWENTIETH
CENTURY AMERICA
CHRIS R. TAME
Historical Notes No. 8
ISSN 0267 7105
ISBN 1 870614 66 6
An occasional publication of the Libertarian Alliance, 25 Chapter Chambers, Esterbrooke Street, London SW1P 4NN
www.libertarian.co.uk
email: [email protected]
© 1989: The Libertarian Alliance; Chris R. Tame.
These two essays first appeared in Libertarian Forum, Vol. IV, No. 11, November 1972, and Vol. VI, No. 5, May 1974.
The views expressed in this publication are those of its author, and not necessarily
those of the Libertarian Alliance, its Committee, Advisory Council or subscribers.
Director: Dr Chris R. Tame
Editorial Director: Brian Micklethwait
FOR LIFE, LIBERTY AND PROPERTY
Webmaster: Dr Sean Gabb
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Introduction
During the 1960’s there arose in America a school of “New
Left” revisionist history which became of considerable interest
to advocates of the free market. The reason for this interest
was that such New Left historians as Gabriel Kolko, William
Appleman Williams and James Weinstein amongst others had
demolished one of the major dogmas of conventional history
and economic interventionism. That dogma was the view that
state intervention in the economy arose as essentially a benevolent force to control the alleged abuses of unrestricted capitalism. It need hardly be emphasized that this view has
enormously buttressed the intellectual and political hegemony
of the state and its apologists (whether in their socialist, conservative or fascist guise).
What the New Left historians were to demonstrate so clearly
thus confirmed the historical and class analyses of classical
liberals and libertarians. The state was essentially an agency
of distinct economic and class interests which, abandoning the
free market, sought special privilege and monopoly. Of
course, the New Left drew somewhat different conclusions
from their research than those of libertarians! The work of
Gabriel Kolko, for example, clearly demonstrated that there
was not some inherent tendency to monopoly at the turn of the
century. Rather, in a market place that was becoming increasingly competitive, certain established economic interests drew
on state power to counteract the workings of the free market.
However, Kolko himself remained a socialist, and retained a
bizarre faith in the desirability and workability of some
vaguely conceived “democratic socialism”.
A further historiographical development occurred, however,
which helped reinforce the revisionist interpretations of the
origins of state interventionism. While it was possible to dismiss both libertarian and New Left writers as politically moti-
vated a small but growing number of historians, without any
obvious political orientation, were beginning to arrive at similar conclusions. This “centrist” revisionism, as I termed it,
manifest the same emphasis on the role of special interest
groups, class factors and the state in twentieth century American history.
In these two review essays, first published in Libertarian
Forum, I have attempted to survey this “revisionism from the
centre”. Like New Left historical revisionism it can assist
greatly in the formulation of a specifically libertarian interpretation of history.
A few words are needed here about terminology. The word
“revisionism” as employed in this essay does not refer to Marxist “revisionism”, or to Jabotinsky’s “Zionist revisionist”. It
refers to “revisionist” perspectives in history, that is, the revision in the light of fresh evidence of established views. Unfortunately, in recent years various National Socialists have
appropriated the term as a label for “holocaust revisionism”
(the denial of the existence of the German genocide programme) and other apologetics for Nazi Germany. Obviously, my use of the term does not relate to that phenomenon!
The word “liberalism” also needs some explication. Unfortunately in America the word has entirely reversed its meaning.
Instead of denoting an ideology of capitalism, the market, individualism, the limitation of state power etc., it now means an
ideology of state intervention, collectivism, the enhancement
of state power etc. This confusing development should be
borne in mind throughout.
Chris R. Tame, October 1989
Revisionism from the Centre: A Review Essay
Exponents of “New Left” historical revisionism will often find
their analysis attacked on grounds other than those concerning
its objective truth. The obvious political motivations and importance of the work of historians such as William Appleman
Williams, Gabriel Kolko, and James Weinstein provides for
historians of the “liberal” consensus a convenient excuse for
ignoring or denigrating their work. Of course, the even more
blatant political motivation and biases in the work of orthodox
liberals is rendered culturally invisible (to the Majority) by its
very dominance. Therefore, the arrival at revisionist conclusions by historians of the “centre” without any strong political
motivations (at least, strong radical ones), is doubly welcome both for its inherent validity and for its utility as “unbiased”
verification of radical revisionism. Although we are not, of
course, exactly being deluged by such non-radical sources of
re- visionism, it is nevertheless true that we are increasingly
observing the appearence of scattered articles and books which
manifest in- sights and analysis in support of the “New Left”
and Libertarian historical case.
Stuart Morris on the Progressives
Thus, in his essay “The Wisconsin Idea and Business Progressivism” (Journal of American Studies, July 1970), Stuart Morris
makes his conception of the Progressive Era perfectly clear
from the start: “The ‘progressive era’, 1900-16, can best be
interpreted ... in terms of the ‘rationalization’ of corporate industrial capitalism ...” The focus of his essay, however, is on
the 1920’s a period which for the liberal orthodoxy (e.g. Hofstadter’s Age of Reform, Schlesinger’s Crisis of the Old Order)
is essentially one of the decline of Progressivism, a “return to
normalcy” and the supremacy of optimistic, self-satisfied business forces - in all, “an unfortunate interregnum” (H. F. May).
Morris demolishes the liberal interpretation. In a close examination of many Progressive (and especially Wisconsin Progressive) intellectuals, he identifies the nature of their thought
as essentially elitist and conservative - anti-laissez faire, of
course, but anti business most definitely not. For individuals
like Charles Van Hise, Herbert Croly, Charles Evans Hughes,
F. C. Howe, F. J. Turner, and Richard T. Ely, the core of their
approach was the concepts of “efficiency” and “control” - a
managerial, elitist ethos. In the words of John R. Commons,
“The outstanding fact (is) the importance of Management. Instead of capitalism moving on like a blind force of nature, as
Marx thought, here we see it moving on by the will of management.” Thus, Morris argues, the movement for business efficiency and rationalization which was manifest in various
forms in the 1920’s (including, for example, the establishment
of university schools of business) was simply a continuation of
the same ideological motivation as that of the earlier Progressives. “Business education ... was not simply a function of
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economic rationalization,” writes Morris, “... it was also a product of progressive aims and assumptions.” If out- right political activism declined in the 1920’s, this was as much to do
with the nature of Progressivism itself as to other factors. Progressivism had simply shifted its focus to other measures to
attain the same ends as before. Thus, F. C. Howe (in Wisconsin: an Experiment in Democracy, 1912) saw “scientific efficiency” as “one of Wisconsin’s contributions to democracy”.
Herbert Croly declared that expert administration was the “instrument which society must gradually forge and improve for
using social knowledge in the interest of valid social purposes”
(Progressive Democracy, 1914), and Louis Brandeis became
the prophet of Business, A Profession, (1914). In Morris’
words, “Like the Fabians in England, the progressive intellectuals heralded the arrival of the reformer as expert. This emphasis on information and practicality served to minimize any
distinction between the expert and the reformer and to enlist
both in the service of the state.”
Robert Weibe and Samuel Hays on Reform and Conservation
However, the most substantial contributions to the revisionist
case to derive from non-radical sources have come from two
other, more prominent, historians: Robert H. Wiebe and Samuel P. Hays.
Robert Wiebe’s Businessmen and Reform: A Study of the Progressive Movement (Quadrangle Books, Chicago, 1968; originally published, 1962) obviously bears immediate comparison to
Kolko’s The Triumph of Conservatism, but it is only right to
say that the latter work is far superior. Both in the arrangement of his material and the depth of his research Wiebe falls
far short of Kolko’s achievement. He also reveals, in a number of comments, far more elements of a liberal historiographical “hangover”. However, this is by no means to denigrate
Wiebe’s work. Businessmen and Reform is marked by a striking realism in its approach to the issues of government regulation, constantly focusing on the hard actuality of economics
ignored by the “liberals”. In contrast to the liberal mythology
of a monolithic and peculiarly malevolent business community, dogmatically opposed to “government regulation for
the public good”, Wiebe analyzes the vitally important clash of
interests within the ranks of business, making it clear that this
economic conflict lay at the root of the demand for government control. Although Kolko’s discussion of most of the
major areas of conflict (the railroads, anti-trust, banking, etc.)
is more detailed and comprehensive, Wiebe’s account is far
from being worthless or unilluminating. His discussion of
anti-trust and the tariff, or his discussion of the triangular conflict between the ambitious city bankers and the small county
bankers in the Mid-West and the large established Eastern
banking houses, should especially be read in conjunction with
Kolko. Overall, then, Wiebe clearly establishes the validity of
his fundamental conclusions; “... both the idea and impetus for
reform,” he states, “came from prospering businessmen on the
make, men like Edward Bacon, Herbert Miles, and George
Perkins ... the business community was the most important
single factor or set of factors - in the development of economic
regulation.”
Samuel P. Hays is probably known to a segment of Libertarians for his work, Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency:
The Progressive Conservation Movement, 1890-1929 (Harvard
University Press, 1959), in which a number of anti-market
myths are dispelled. Specifically, he shows that the range
wars of the 1880’s were due to the fact that property rights
could not be acquired, and that the lumber corporations were
not universally engaged in short sighted resource exploitation.
However, the importance of the book does not lie merely in
these two limited points. For, in fact, in an analysis of this
particular aspect of Progressive reform Hays attacks the core
of liberal mythology. “The conservation movement”, he
writes, “did not involve a reaction against large-scale corporate
business, but, in fact, shared its view in a mutual revulsion
against unrestrained competition and undirected economic development. Both groups (i.e. corporate leaders and Progressive
reformers) placed a premium on large-scale capital organization, technology, and industry-wide co-operation and planning
to abolish the uncertainties and waste of competitive resource
use.” This point Hays drives home throughout the book: the
demand for conservation regulation came from the large corporations themselves, united with Progressivism in general by
a shared elitist and technocratic social ethos. The precise implications of his research, however, are outlined in the essay
“The Mythology of Conservation” (in H. Jarrett, ed., Perspectives on Conservation, Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1958):
“Few can resist the temptation,” Hays declares, “to use history
to formulate an ideology which will support their own aspirations, rather than look squarely at the hard facts of the past.”
And the liberal historians, he makes clear, are the most guilty
of succumbing to this temptation. Their devotion to the concept of “public control” as the summum bonum of political life
has blinded them to the nature of such control in practice. As
Hays makes quite clear in the context of his research on Conservation, “Public control is not an end in itself; it is only a
means to an end. Conservation means much more than simply
public action; and we should be more concerned with the history of its objectives rather than of its techniques. In fact, by
dwelling on the struggle for public action historians have obscured the much more basic problem of the fate of conservation objectives.” The identification of state intervention as
inherently in the “public interest”, to be no more questioned
than Motherhood or Democracy, distorts historical real- ity.
Holding such concepts the measure of all virtue, it is clear why
no examination of the real motives of their proponents - or
even of who those proponents actually were - could emerge
from liberal historiography. In Hays’ own words: “The widespread use of the concept of the public interest often obscures
the importance of political struggle, and substitutes rhetoric for
reality. It permits bitter political contests to be far beneath the
calm surface of agreed-on language and technical jargon ...
The great danger of the ‘public interest’ is that it can lull one
into complacency by persuading him to accept a mythological
instead of a substantive analysis of both historical and contemporary conservation issues.”
Professor Hays, moreover, has not merely restricted himself to
demolishing this one sphere of liberal mythology. In his essay
“The Politics of Reform in Municipal Government in the Progressive Era” (Pacific Northwest Quarterly, October 1964; and
reprinted in A. B. Callow Jr., Ed., American Urban History,
Oxford University Press, N.Y., 1969), Hays has performed an
analysis as astute and important as Weinstein’s work in this
field. Once more he demolishes the facade of liberal historiography: “Because the goals of reform were good its causes
were obvious; rather than being the product of particular
people and particular ideas in particular situations, they were
deeply imbedded in the universal impulses and truths of ‘progress’. Consequently, historians have rarely tried to determine
precisely who the municipal reformers were or what they did,
but instead have relied on reform ideology as an accurate description of reform practice.” Liberal historians have thus seen
the urban political struggle of the Progressive Era as a conflict
between public impulses for “good government” against the
corrupt alliance of machine politics and the “special interests”
of business. In the modified versions of Mowry, Chandler,
and Hofstadter, the role of the middle-class is stressed, but although this interpretation apparently rests upon a slightly more
scientific approach, it is equally deficient, in fact, in logic, and
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depth of research, and is still subject to the same ideological
self-delusion. For his definitive analysis of the topic Hays
draws from a wide range of research - from the results of his
own efforts, from work that has appeared recently, and from
work that has been available for decades (such as the case
studies of the city-manager governments undertaken in the
1930’s under Leonard White’s direction). The source of Progressive municipal reform, Hays conclusively demonstrates,
lay in the upper classes. The financing of New York’s Bureau
of Municipal Research, for example, came largely from Carnegie and Rockefeller, and this pattern of corporate financial
support for reform organizations is the same in every case.
Urban Progressivism derived essentially from the new upper
class of corporate leaders and the younger and more advanced
members of the professions, individuals who sought to apply
“expertise” and “managerial control” to public affairs. A clear
examination of Progressive aims reveals that their principal objection to the existing system of local government was to the
fact that it gave representation and effective control to the
lower and middle classes, rather than to the more suitable elements - themselves!
The essence of Progressive municipal reform lay not in such
measures as direct primaries, the initiative, referendum and recall, so often emphasized by liberal historians, for these were
in fact often irrelevant and ineffective in practice and utilized
more for tactical and propagandistic ends. Rather, it constituted the centralization of the system of representation, the
shift from ward to city-wide election of councils and school
boards and the establishment of the commission and city-manager forms of government. Such centralization destroyed the
existing balance of representation and allowed the upper
classes to dominate government. It is no wonder then, that, as
the studies carried out under Leonard White’s direction revealed, the lower and middle classes overwhelmingly opposed
the Progressive reforms. The conclusion of Hays’ devastatingly
incisive essay is uncompromisingly clear: “The movement for
reform in municipal government, therefore, constituted an attempt by upper-class advanced professional, and large business
groups to take formal political power from the previously
dominant lower-and-middle-class elements so that they might
advance their own conceptions of desirable public policy.”
Hays’ “Social Analysis” of History
Hays has thus performed a brilliant analysis of two major aspects of Progressivism and has enunciated clearly the reasons
that most liberal historians have been unable either to discover
historical actuality or even recognize such actuality when it
faces them in the available documentation. Yet he has also
attempted to go further, to integrate revisionist perspectives
into a general theory of historical causation. His essay “The
Social Analysis of American Political History, 1880-1920”,
(Political Science Quarterly, September, 1965) is thus valuable
as a description of this theory as well as for the wealth of
bibliographic information it contains (information of which no
Libertarian student of history should fail to be aware and to
utilize). In fact, the essay is one of the most complete and
devastating attacks ever made on liberal historiography. Hays
surveys an extensive range of (principally) recent research on a
plethora of socio-political topics, all of which, he demonstrates, fail to conform to liberal mythology, and whose significance and importance will go unrecognized as long as this
mythology predominates. Thus, in Hays’ summary:
“The liberal framework, more concerned with the formal
and the episodic, has become increasingly restrictive
rather than conducive to further social analysis. It has
prevented historians giving full attention to the political
role of working people, the influence of ethnocultural fac-
tors in politics, the changing characteristics of elites, the
role of the business community in reform, the treatment
of urban life as a system of social organization, the
source of anti-reform impulses, the conflict between local
and cosmopolitan cultures, the growth of bureaucracy and
administration, the growth of education as a process of
cultural transmission and social mobility, the development of ideology and its relationship to practice, and the
examination of inter-regional economic relationships.
Most important, it has obscured significant shifts in the
location and techniques of decision making in a more
highly systematized society ...”
And this slashing indictment, it should be emphasized, is thoroughly documented on every point raised. Also of note in this
essay, in relation to Stuart Morris’ study of the Progressive
ethos cited earlier, is Hays’ own account of the ideological factors that made possible the co-operation of the new industrial
elite, the professional classes, and the intelligentsia: “This new
(i.e. corporate) elite”, he writes, “was highly attractive to patricians and intellectuals. While many in both groups had rejected the materialism and brashness of the new industrial
elite, they found in the tendencies toward rationality and systematization an acceptable outlet for their talents, and thereby
became reconciled to the very business community which earlier they had abhorred.”
Centrist Revisionism As Determinist Apologetics
Thus the Libertarian may be well pleased that there has developed a parallel stream of revisionist historical analysis
alongside that from the ‘New Left’, one from, so to speak, the
“centre”. Yet this “centrist” revisionism does contain implicit
dangers, dangers to be found in Hays’ general theory of “social
analysis” that is offered as an alternative to the “liberal framework”. Specifically, this danger lies in economic-cum-technological determinism. Thus, the growth of political centralization and the nature of “Progressive” political movements, is
seen by Hays as a result of “the systematizing and organizing
processes inherent in industrialism ... the dynamic force in social change in modern life ... Political movements in modern
industrial society can be distinguished in terms of the role
which they played in this evolving structure.” (Emphasis
mine.) Central- ization and the “Progressive” reforms are seen
as the “techniques which these systems (i.e. modern industrial
ones) require”, and the “persistent upward flow of the location
of decision-making”, as the natural consequence of the “evolution from smaller to larger and larger systems”. Of course,
there are elements of truth in the view that changing economic
structures will involve changing social structures. Yet it is
also equally clear that the deterministic tendency in Hays’
thought obscures the socio-political alternatives that may have
existed. From the point of view of the Libertarian, it is apparent that vital questions of the nature and legitimacy of property rights and of market conditions are overlooked or held of
no account. Thus, Hays’ social analysis could equally well
serve the same function as that presently done by the liberal
framework - as an historical consecration, a justification for
the status quo and for that “persistent upward flow of the location of decision making”. This tendency is equally apparent in
Wiebe’s Businessmen and Reform, in his statement, ironic now
in retrospect, that “With so few signs of domestic upheaval at
the beginning of the 1960s (!) any elite would take pride in the
record of America’s durable business leadership.” Revisionism from the centre, therefore, can easily become absorbed
once more into the “American Celebration”.
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The Growth of Revisionism From The Centre: A Review Essay
In an earlier essay, I dealt with the phenomenon of what I
termed “revisionism from the centre” - that is, the increasingly
common appearance of works by historians who, while still
remaining within the bounds of the “liberal” (i.e. statist) paradigm, were arriving at insights and analyses which confirm the
historical interpretations of New Left and Libertarian scholars.
The importance of this liberal or “centrist” revisionism, I argued, was a twofold one, arising not only from its inherent
value and validity but also from its utility as an “unbiased”
verification of an interpretation previously characterised by its
obviously political motivations and implications.
In my original essay I reviewed the works of three particular
expositors of revisionism from the centre, those of Stuart
Morris, Robert Weibe, and Samuel P. Hays.1 However, there
have been a number of other equally important contributions
which I did not touch upon but which also deserve to be
brought to the attention of those Libertarians who realize the
importance of historical revisionism in the formation of a relevant and fully radical Libertarian ideology.
Austin Kerr on the Railroads
Perhaps one of the most notable works to appear in the wake
of Gabriel Kolko’s seminal studies in economic and political
history is K. Austin Kerr’s American Railroad Politics, 19141920: Rates Wages, Efficiency (Pittsburgh University Press,
1968). Especially interesting in the context of this essay is the
fact that Kerr’s study was conducted with an awareness of the
work of both New Left and liberal revisionists. His research
was first begun in a seminar conducted by Samuel P. Hays at
Iowa University in 1959, and continued at Pittsburgh University as a doctoral dissertation under Hays’ direction, while at
the same time Kerr also received assistance from Kolko himself. While praising the latter’s work, however, Kerr does
make the qualification that “because he (i.e. Kolko) analyses
railroad affairs primarily from the point of view of only one
group, the railroads themselves, Kolko misses many of the
complexities of railroad politics” (p. 236). This is indeed a
valid point. Although Kolko was undoubtedly aware of the
role of the clash of divergent business interests in the movement for regulation,2 his focus in Railroads and Regulation
was certainly upon the views and actions of the railroads themselves. A broader approach can surely supply us with a lot
more equally valuable material, and in this respect American
Railroad Politics constitutes a valuable adjunct to Kolko’s volume. This should not be taken as any detraction from the latter’s achievement, however. Kolko was not only dealing with
a more extensive period of time (the years 1877 to 1916, as
compared with Kerr’s analysis of the years 1914 to 1920) but
could hardly be expected to pursue in one volume every aspect
of his basic subject. Kerr’s work, then, builds on that of
Kolko but extends it to draw a more detailed portrait of the
complexity of affairs in the business community. It consequently provides a useful corrective against seing ‘business’ in
terms of a monolithic entity and conspiracy, with Kerr’s view
of the Progressive Era “(interpreting its) system of decisionmaking as one which satisfied the business community’s
general desire for regulation but failed to grant consistently the
ends sought by any one group” (p. 4). Kolko’s interpretation
of the period as one of the rise of “political capitalism” finds
ample confirmation by Kerr, however. As he puts it himself:
“Railroad regulation developed historically as a system of
resolving differences among competing economic groups
that had a common concern with transportation. At issue
were freight rates, wages, profits, and operating efficiency
... past studies have failed to analyze systematically the
origins within American industrial society of arguments
over railroad issues. There has been no explicit awareness of the contrasting, competing interests among the
economic groups involved with transportation, and no
cognizance of the changing bargaining relationships
among them.” (pp. 2-3)
Kerr also launches into a heartwarming attack on liberal historiography, rejecting the orthodox liberal vision of the Progressive Era as a period of conflict between the “public” and
the “interests” and of the post-World War 1 period as one of
conservative reaction and “return to normalcy”. The purveyors
of this mythology, as Kerr so incisively puts it:
“(H)ave for the most part overlooked the essentially probusiness nature of federal regulation in the Progressive
Era. The rhetoric of railroad regulation during the prewar period, to be sure, advocated public control of private
interests. However, this rhetoric, if taken alone, seems
only to obscure the significant practice. We must understand it in relation to the ends sought in the argumentation of issues. Primarily, these ends involved the desire
of business groups to use governmental, public means to
control - if not to solve - private economic problems. Although important transitory changes occurred during the
war, both the rhetorical assumptions and the general goals
of the business groups concerned with railroad policy remained strikingly similar throughout the period leading
up to the Transportation Act of 1920. The war experience reinforced the prevailing prewar commitment to
federal regulation as the most desirable way of resolving
economic differences. This reinforcement of the basic assumptions underlying federal regulation stands out in
retrospect as a bold continuity in American political history.” (pp. 4-5)
And thus Kerr concludes:
“If we view the ideological rhetoric of these years as an
expression of particular perceptions instead of adopting it
as interpretive verity, we can observe a continuous political force functioning within American industrial society,
wherein business was able to exploit governmental power
in order to make capitalism a more viable system. This
political force was a complex phenomenon involving a
high degree of competitive rivalry between groupings
within the business community.” (p. 229)
Robert Asher on Business and Labour
Not surprisingly, the area in which the revisionism of Kolko
and Weinstein has perhaps been hardest to disregard is that of
economic and business history. The pages of the Business
History Review, for example, have thus attested to the growing
impact and influence of the revisionist perspective. Robert
Asher’s “Business and Workers’ Welfare in the Progressive
Era: Workmen’s Compensation Reform in Massachusetts,
1880-1911” (Business History Review, Vol. XLIII, No. 4,
Winter 1969) is a case in point. Citing the work of both New
Leftists like Kolko and Weinstein and ‘liberals’ like Weibe and
Hays, Asher focuses on the less extensively analysed subject
of the attitudes and role of business in reform at the state level.
In the case of workmen’s compensation reform in Massachusetts in the period examined Asher confirms the basic revisionist account: reform, he states, “was supported by economic
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groups usually, and justifiably, considered conservative” (p.
453). Similarly, his description of the motivation of these
businessmen also provides further detailed evidence of that
vein of thought so aptly termed by the New Left as “corporate
liberalism”.
“Workmen’s compensation legislation promised to rationalize the wasteful and pernicious defects employers observed in the existing liability-litigation system. Many
employers thought workmen’s compensation reform
would conserve the stability of established social institutions by removing a major source of friction and antagonism between workers and employers. Workmen’s compensation reform also would help conserve the welfare of
an important national resource: human labor. Thus ... (it)
appealed to enlightened, class-conscious employers ... and
to conservative, efficiency and cost-minded employers.”
(pp. 453-454)
However, Asher does make some critical comments on Weinstein’s seminal essay, “Big Business and the Origins of Workmen’s Compensation”, stating that his own research “in New
York, Minnesota, and Massachusetts has shown that the model
workmen’s compensation bill circulated by the National Civic
Federation did not exert any impact on the course and final
result of workmen’s compensation legislation” (p. 474). Moreover, he argues that not only does Weinstein overrate the role
of the NCF in the movement for this particular reform, but that
he “does not sufficiently emphasize the negative effects that
the cost-conscious conservative employers had on compensation legislation. Unlike the work of the liberal employers of
the Boston Chamber of Commerce’s Committee on Industrial
Relations, the activities of conservative employers with the
(NCF), in Massachusetts and elsewhere, delayed the implementation of pioneering workmen’s compensation systems and
reduced the quantity and quality of assistance extended to injured workers.” (p. 474) In reply to these criticisms, it should
be stressed that Weinstein never portrayed business as a
monolithic entity and was fully cognizant of the complexities
of motivation, the clashes of interest and ideas among businessmen. Whether he sufficiently emphasized the point Asher
raises seems to me a rather nebulous matter, related more to
the specific and subjective interest of the historian than to any
question of substance. While Asher’s study does, then, provide material of interest regarding what occurred in one state,
it does not, in my view even here constitute the final view. He
does not really draw an adequate picture of the roots and development of corporate liberal ideology among the business
elite nor perceive its central importance for our understanding
of the period.
Mansel Blackford on Regulation
A rather more valuable contribution to the body of revisionist
analysis is Mansel Griffiths Blackford’s essay “Businessmen
and the Regulation of Railroads and Public Utilities in California during the Progressive Era” (Business History Review, Vol.
XLIV, No. 3, Autumn 1970). Similarly citing the work of
both Kolko and Weibe regarding the reform movement at the
national level, Blackford focuses on the specific situation in
California and provides a useful confirmation of the revisionist
case. Regarding railroad and utilities regulation there he demonstrates that “(g)roups of businessmen were in the vanguard
of both reforms” (p. 307). Like Kerr - and in contrast to
Kolko - Blackford deals mainly not with the railroads themselves but with the other business interests which sought state
regulation. These interests were primarily concerned with reducing competition between themselves and “stabilizing” business conditions - as in the case of the competition between Los
Angeles and San Francisco for the trade of the San Joaquin
Valley. While not emphasizing the views and activities of the
railroads themselves, however, Blackford does observe that by
1911 the railroads offered no opposition at the public hearings
over (Governor) Hiram Johnson’s regulatory bill. The cost of
rebating to the railroads was indeed considerable, he notes, and
undoubtedly disliked by them. In the case of the movement
that resulted in the Public Utilities Act of 1912, however, it
was the utilities themselves that sought regulation.
“The public utility companies, especially the larger ones,
were in the vanguard of those clamoring for its (i.e. the
1912 Act) passage. They hoped that by the enactment of
a law giving a state commission power over rates they
could escape constant hassling with the often corrupt municipal and county authorities. Some also expected to use
the commission to end competition among themselves.
In addition, regulation was also favored as a means of
enhancing the character and improving the market for
public utility stock and bond issues.” (p. 313)
And the expectations of the the utilities were in fact fulfilled.
The railroad commission, in which was also vested the task of
utility regulation, acted in both its areas of concern to prevent
rate wars and restrict competition, arguing on the specious
grounds that both railroads and utilities were “natural monopolies”, that “duplication of facilities” was a “wasteful inefficiency”, and that unregulated competition was self-destructive
and led ultimately to monopoly and higher rates.
Reassessing the Character of ‘Progressive’ and ‘Liberal’
Ideology: Leuchtenburg, Diggins and Kaplan
Like New Left revisionism, the focus of revisionism from the
centre has generally been upon economic and political history.
The examination of ideas and ideology in their own right, the
perspective of the historian of ideas, has tended to take a back
seat. Nevertheless, a number of works have appeared which
add substantially to our understanding of the nature of American progressive, ‘liberal’ and reform thought - and whose observations fit nicely into the revisionist framework. Putting
aside such questions as to what extent “purely” intellectual factors - beliefs and moral values - are a major causative factor
independent of direct economic interest and motive, what we
are concerned with here are those works which, in demonstrating the fundamentally conservative, authoritarian, and elitist
character of most of the Left and ‘liberal’ mainstream, render
clear how the nefarious aims of the corporate power elite were
able to find sanctification by the intellectuals - what the liberals really had in mind behind their grandiloquent rhetoric.
Orthodox ‘liberal’ historiography has, of course, always recognized the elements of conservatism and “moderation” within
the tradition of ‘liberal’ and progressive thought, but it has
generally passed over their true significance and nature in a
rather glib manner and preferred not to probe too deeply. Fortunately, however, a few have gone further. For example, William E. Leuchtenburg’s “Progressivism and Imperialism: The
Progressive Movement and American Foreign Policy, 18981916” (Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. XXXIX)
stressed the commitment of the major Progressive politicians,
publicists, and intellectuals to imperialism and nationalism,
and argued that “this explains much about the basic character
of the Progressive movement” (p. 507). Despite its frequently
evangelical tone, Leuchtenburg characterized Progressivism as
reformist rather than revolutionary, accepting traditional
American values and ideals - including racist and authoritarian
ones - and untimately suffering from an inner tension “between
humanistic values and nationalist aspirations” (p. 503). Similarly, John P. Diggins in his essay “Flirtation With Fascism:
American Pragmatic Liberals and Mussolini’s Italy” (American
Historical Review, Vol. LXXI, No. 2, Jan. 1966) and his
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longer study Mussolini and Fascism: The View From America
(Princeton University Press, 1972) demonstrated how a large
and important segment of liberals were attracted to European
fascism and the corporate state. For such thinkers fascist corporatism seemed to embody the core of their ideals, those of
“social engineering” and the creation of a scientifically and
consciously ordered social system in which all class and group
interests were represented and harmonized in the service of the
higher national interest. Ironically, however, one of the most
interesting re-examinations of liberal thought, Sidney Kaplan’s
“Social Engineers as Saviors: Effects of World War I on Some
American Liberals” (Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol.
XVII, No. 3, June 1956) received little attention at the time of
its publication, Kaplan dealt primarily with the work of such
major liberal thinkers as Dewey, Croly and Lippmann showing
their commitment to a scientistic vision of the Good Society,
one in which “organized social intelligence” was embodied in
a “vanguard” elite of administrators. Class conflict was thus to
be eradicated in a system characterized by efficiency, science
and a competent, paternalistically humanitarian elite of scientists, “the new kind of businessman”, experts, and social administrators. World War I, while leading to disillusionment in
some cases - most notably that of Randolph Bourne - had no
such effect on others or even led to an enhancement of their
conservative, anti-democratic temper (as in the case of
Lippmann) or to the adoption of an equally conservative element of mystic religiosity (as in the case of Croly).
Charles Forcey on ‘Liberalism’
The process of critical re-examination of the liberal heritage by
a contemporary liberal scholar has been taken furthest, however, by Charles Forcey in his The Crossroads of Liberalism:
Croly, Weyl, Lippmann and the Progressive Era, 1900-1925
(Oxford University Press, N.Y., 1961) Forcey’s study indeed
starts on an auspicious and critical note. In his Preface he expresses some doubts about liberalism, recounting that, as an
undergraduate, liberalism “was, of course, a good thing. But
that only made it more difficult to explain the fearsome
tragedies that had overtaken America and the world when liberals were in power” (p. iii). The less than totally satisfactory
record of liberalism led Forcey, therefore, to ask “(w)ere there
fatal flaws in liberalism itself?” (p. iii). It is to answer this
question, then, that Forcey selected The New Republic and its
founders as his subject as a “convenient medium for exploring
some of the dilemmas of liberalism” (p. iv).
The Crossroads of Liberalism in fact constitutes an excellent
account of the ideas of Croly, Weyl and Lippmann, certainly
three of the most influential exponents of statist liberalism.
Forcey traces the development of their ideas (including some
often most interesting doubts and dilemmas in their later years)
against the background of political events, and those ideas
emerge quite clearly in the garb of elitism, authoritarianism
and nationalism. Unfortunately, however, while undoubtedly a
useful intellectual portrait, Forcey’s book is grieviously deficient in its evaluation. Although perceptively stressing “how
dangerously ambiguous a focus nationalism was for the new
liberalism” (p. 260) Forcey reveals again and again how irrevocably wedded he is to the dogmas of orthodox “liberalism”.
His conception of “creative social change” is still nothing but
“social democracy” and the extension of state power. While
not totally blind to the dangers of executive power he still parrots such old saws as “(n)o one can deny the need for strong
executives in a country where reformers are often hamstrung
by constitutional restrictions and political anachronisms” (p.
311)! (Those who do maintain the presumptuous desire not to
be ‘socially engineered’ by such enlightened and humanitarian
liberals are well and truly consigned to a state of non-existence!) Moreover, apparently still adhering to the Hofstadter/
status revolution interpretation of the Progressive movement,
Forcey totally fails to realize that the business elite was immersed in the movement for reform, both politically and intellectually, and that the formulas of state regulation were quite
to their taste. Taken in by the facile rhetoric of “social democracy”, he fails to see how the statist panaceas common to
“scientific socialism” and “liberalism” have objectively served
the itnerests of the corporate power elite. In all, he fails to
grasp the significance of his own description of the liberalism
of Croly and co., how their elitist and authoritarian ethos reflects so well the reality of “social democracy” in practice how it constitutes in every sense of the term a corporate liberalism!
E. K. Hunt on the Character of the New Deal
Yet if none of these re-examinations of the liberal heritage
which we have described have gone far enough in their analysis, there are some signs that a truly radical revisionism is
beginning to gain some academic ground. The most notable
example of this is E. K. Hunt’s essay “A Neglected Aspect of
the Economic Ideology of the Early New Deal” (Review of Social Economy, Vol. XXIX, No. 2, Sept. 1971). Rejecting the
orthodox liberal historiography in which a “progressive” government intervened in the economy to curb the power of big
business, Hunt cites the revisionist analysis of both New Left
and Libertarian scholars: “a smaller group of economists and
historians”, he states, “with points of view as far apart as Gabriel Kolko and Murray Rothbard have shown that the twentieth century evolution of the interventionist state was
accomplished only because it had the support of big business.
In fact big businessmen have been the driving force in this
evolution.” (p. 180) Hunt, however, concentrates in this essay
on the intellectual background of the rise of the corporate state
and indeed provides a most useful (although by no means definitive) analysis of that background. Specifically, he makes
the perceptive point that “(t)he active intervention of the government to create cartels and to promote industrial cooperation
rather than competition seems to have paralleled closely the
German experience of the late nineteenth century” (p. 180) and
thus takes as his major theme the demonstration that “the apparent similarity between the philosophy underlying the New
Deal and the Philosophy underlying German cartelization in
the late nineteenth century was not entirely accidental” (p.
180).
Hunt in fact selects as a key figure Simon N. Patten, whom he
correctly describes as “one of the most influential teachers of
economics in the United States in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries” (p. 182). What was significant was that
Patten in fact studied for a period in Germany, in the intellectual atmosphere of the “Socialists of the Chair” of the Verein
fur Sozialpolitik. Indeed, Patten studied directly under many
of the members of the Verein and became the protegé of one
of its founders, Professor Johannes Conrad. And thus Patten
became thoroughly - nay, religiously, as he himself said - imbued with a world view which, while “anti-socialist”, was
equally and militantly anti-laissez faire, urging a programme of
vigorous interventionism, coercive cartelization, and welfarestatism. It was this creed that Patten embodied in his subsequent and voluminous works: an all-out attack on the
“waste”, “inefficiency”, and “immorality” of the free-market.
In the place of the market he advocated a new order of “corporate collectivism”, in which competition was eradicated and
the “socialized capitalist” - united with a conservative labour
unionism - administered an economy of abundance in the
‘public interest’.
It should be immediately pointed out that Hunt sees the rise of
the corporate state by no means simply as the consequence of
7
the nefarious influence of intellectuals like Patten. The enthusiasm of big business itself for corporate collectivism, especially after their experience of the War Industries Board, had
not a little to do with the matter, as Hunt readily indicates!
Nevertheless, the contribution of Patten and his disciples to the
ideology and the creation of the present system is certainly significant. Indeed, it is especially worth noting that such New
Dealers and architects of the NRA as Frances Perkins and Rexford Tugwell were protegés and disciples of Patten. The case
of Tugwell is also illuminating since, as Hunt points out, he
“has been considered by many historians to represent the radical or left-wing element of Rossevelt’s brain trust” and since
“the common assumption that New Deal reforms had a leftist
orientation is often based on the belief that Tugwell was a spokesman for the left” (p. 186).
Hunt, then, vigorously indicts ‘liberal’ historiography for its
“my- opic historical misinterpretation of the economic social
and polit- ical significance of the New Deal and post World
War II American Corporate Liberalism” (p. 187) and for its
failure to grasp the thoroughly conservative nature of ‘liberalism’ and welfare-statism.
“While the dominant economic ideas and policies of
‘welfare-statism’ of late nineteenth century Germany are
almost unanimously regarded as profoundly conservative,
highly similar ideas and policies in the United States
which were directly influenced by those from Germany
are often treated as progressive or even radical.” (p. 187)
Hunt’s conclusion is both ringing and radical in its revisionism
- and especially refreshing in its recognition of the singular inappropriateness of the appellation “conservative” when applied
to libertarian and individualist critics of the status quo.
“The post World War II American ‘Corporate State’ appears to this writer to be based upon a profoundly conservative coalition of government, big business, conservative
labor leaders and ‘liberal’ intellectuals. Kaiser Wilhelm I
and Bismark would certainly smile approvingly on contemporary American capitalism. And yet most American
economists insist on reserving the label ‘conservative’ for
advocates of individualist liberalism many of whom are
among the most thoroughgoing critics of contemporary
American capitalism.” (pp. 190-191)
The Revival of Historical Apologetics
The growth of revisionism from the centre is clearly a development to be welcomed by the Libertarian. Yet one major
qualification must be especcially stressed, and that is that there
is nothing inherently radical in its revelations. As I showed in
my earlier essay, such liberal revisionists as Robert Weibe, for
example, portrayed the role of business in the attainment of
“reform” in no critical light but rather as a praiseworthy
achievement! Similarly, Samuel P. Hays offered an interpretation of American history, a “social analysis”, which portrayed
the growth of political and economic centralization as an inevitable consequence of industrialization, technology, and the
“evolution from smaller to larger and larger systems”. In other
words, while certainly describing the rise of our present corporate state in a more realistic manner, such liberal revisionist
works also act simultaneously as its intellectual consecration,
as a historiographical justification of the status quo. This apologetic role is also played by many of the works we have reviewed in this essay. Robert Asher, for example, in his essay
on workmen’s compensation, describes the various corporatist
and interventionist policies as “great positive contributions to
the rationalization and elimination of iniquitious social and
economic practices and institutions” (Op. cit., p. 452). And
Mansel Griffiths Blackford also completely embraces the spe-
cious anti-market arguments of the architects of corporate collectivism:
“(I)t is probably wrong to see too sharp a dichotomy between the best interests of business groups and the
general public ... all profited from the (railroad and
utilities) commission’s policy on competition. By protecting public service corporations within their fields of
operation, the commission both strengthened the financial
positions of the utilities and prevented rate wars and the
duplication of facilities, the costs of which, as the commissioners frequently pointed out, were ultimately borne
by the public.” (Op. cit., p. 319)
Louis Galambos’ “Organizational Synthesis”
In fact, another recent essay in the Business History Review
under- lines our point regarding the ideological ambiguity of
revisionism from the centre very well. In “The Emerging Organizational Synthesis in Modern American History” (Vol.
XLIV, No. 3, Autumn, 1970), Professor Louis Galambos offers
an interpretation of recent historiography in which the works
of both New Left and Liberal scholars are subsumed in a tendency which he terms the “organizational school of history” (p.
280). In essence, the common denominator of the works in
this “organizational” category, as Galambos sees it, is their
focus on the “important changes which have taken place in
modern America (and which) have centered about a shift from
small-scale, informal, locally or regionally oriented groups to
large-scale, national, formal organizations. The new organizations are characterized by a bureaucratic structure of authority.” (p. 280) Interestingly, Galambos himself perceives the
ambiguous ideological implications of liberal organizational
approaches. On the one hand, “(o)rganizational analysis could
blend with New Left ideology to produce a synthesis which
would appeal to those scholars who demand that history be
‘relevant’ in some precise and immediate way”, while on the
other “some historians may find it impossible not to surrender
their own judgement to the pragmatic and self-serving viewpoints expressed by their organizational subjects” (p. 289).
Precisely! And we might justifiably add that Galambos’ own
interpretation of the “emerging organizational synthesis” is actually insidiously conservative, due to its implicitly and explicitly economic and ‘organizational’ determinism. Such deterministic interpretations are indeed extremely convenient for
the beneficiaries of the existing corporate collectivist system.
Whatever our satisfaction at the development of revisionism
from the centre, and for that matter, New Left revisionism, our
reading of both, however, surely underlines the importance of
radical libertarians participating actively in such historical endeavours. For only such direct involvement can prevent the
value of the revisionist perspective from being vitiated by
either the conservative apologetics of the liberals or the barren
and disastrous socialist dogmas of the New Left.
Notes
1. The works I dealt with were, specifically: Stuart Morris, “The Wisconsin Idea
and Business Progressivism”, Journal of American Studies, July 1970; Robert
Weibe, Businessmen and Reform: A Study of the Progressive Movement
(1962; Quadrangle Books, Chicago, 1968); Samuel P. Hays, Conservation
and the Gospel of Efficiency: The Progressive Conservation Movement,
1890-1929 (Harvard Un iversi ty Press, 1959); “The Mythology of
Conservation”, in H. Jarrett, ed., Perspectives on Conservation (Johns
Hopkins Press, 1958); “The Politics of Reform in Municipal Government in
the Progressive Era”, Pacific Northwest Quarterly October 1964; “The Social
Analysis of American Political History, 1880-1920”, Political Science
Quarterly, Sept. 1965.
2. See his comments regarding the conflict between the independent oil
producers of the Petroleum Producers Union and Standard Oil, or the rivalry
between the New York merchants and those of Boston, Philadelphia and
Baltimore. Railroads and Regulation, 1877-1916 (1965; W. W. Norton, N.Y.,
1970) pp. 22-26.